4 June - Bath Assembly Rooms

The National Trust has a couple of properties in Bath. One is the Prior Park Landscape Garden which is partially open during the week and fully open at the weekend. There's also a 2 mile walk you can doin the hills around Bath and then there's the Bath Assembly Rooms. The property has been owned by the National Trust for decades but was run by the municipality of Bath until 2022 when the Trust took over its administration and running. There has been a large fundraising effort since then and the building is slowly being refurbished and will, in future, feature interactive exhibits and displays but for now it's just lovely empty rooms. (Photo below from the National Trust site.)

I went into the tour imagining that an assembly room had some association with politics. Not so. In Georgian and Regency times, an assembly room was where the gentry and the rich merchant classes would assemble for parties, balls. and other entertainment. It provided an opportunity for young ladies to meet and flirt with young gentlemen with an eye toward marriage. Our guide for the tour of the rooms was a wonderfully knowledgeable young woman named Hannah.

The entry hall must have made quite an impression in its day with its grand columns and long hallway.

Partygoers would make their way down the hall to the small octagon where they would wait for the doors to the other rooms to open. As Hannah pointed out, between the number of people being cramped in such a small place and the fact that there were four fireplaces, it must have been very warm indeed.

At this point I should talk a bit about Beau Nash. According to Wikipedia, he was "a celebrated dandy and leader of fashion in 18th-century Britain. He is best remembered as the Master of Ceremonies at the spa town of Bath." He is also remembered as the person who codified acceptable behavior and invented good British manners, as it were. He played a leading role in making Bath the most fashionable resort in 18th-century England. According to Etiquipedia ( yes, there really is such a thing),

"He not only matched ladies with appropriate dancing partners at each ball, but he'd pay the musicians at many events. Nash would meet the newest arriving visitors to Bath and judge whether they were suitable to join the select "Company" of 500 to 600 people who had pre-booked tables there. He would broker marriages, escort unaccompanied wives when needed, and even regulated what gambling he could, by restraining compulsive gamblers or warning players against cardsharps and risky games."

The balls would start with dancing of the minuet in the ballroom.

Note the upstairs alcove for the orchestra - can't have them mixing with the proper folks.

The richest and best placed of society would dance first, one couple at a time. As they danced the rest of the assembled crowd would watch and comment on their clothes and their dancing. This would last for several hours at which time everyone would adjourn to the Tea Room for refreshments.

When I think tea room I think of a little room with enough space for a few tables. I definitely don't think of room like this.

The chandeliers were made for the building and if you look closely you can see that the main globe in the center is slightly different, one lamp to another.

The assembly rooms were bombed extensively during WWII, so much of what you now see has been restored.

The last room we saw was the Large Octagonal room.

There are mirrors over the four fireplaces. Hannah asked us to see if we could figure out the "trick" to the mirrors.

The secret is that the central mirror is angled slightly down while the sides are angled slightly upward. This way, depending upon where in the room you were standing, you could see yourself or your rivals or someone you were flirting with in the central mirror. The outer mirrors would reflect the light from the windows and the chandeliers, lighting the room.

If you're a fan of Jane Austen, you may remember her reference to the assembly rooms in the novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. She was a guest here herself on a number of occasions.

Eventually, as styles changed and other towns became the new "it" place to be, the assembly rooms were no longer the center of the social scene. The Victorians redecorated them and used them for concerts and lecture. Here's a great illustration of the difference between the ballroom in Georgian times and in Victorian times.

While on this tour I started chatting with one of the other tourists. We talked about my cat sitting and she asked where were off to next. I told her that the next stop was Wenvoe, Wales, then we were off to Rainhill, Lancashire. She said, "Oh, I'm from a little town about five miles from Rainhill." Small world.

By the time our tour ended the sky had darkened and it was noticeably colder, but we walked the 5 minutes or so to the Royal Crescent, because you really can't visit Bath and not see it. It's a gorgeous semi-circle of Georgian terrace homes and was the height of fashion in the Georgian era.

It started to rain, so we headed back to the flat to change clothes and get raincoats and brollies. I plugged my phone in to charge, since it seems to burn through battery power when I take a lot of photos. We went back into the heart of Bath, this time to tour the Bath Abbey. It was then I realized that I had left my phone at the flat, so the pix from this part of the story were taken by Bruce.

Bath Abbey (aka The Abbey Church of St. Peter and St. Paul) is a former Benedictine Abbey that was founded in the 7th century. I'll skip all the details of its history otherwise this blog would be book length. Here's a capsule history: John of Tours became the first Abbott of Bath. John rebuilt the monastic church at Bath, which had been damaged during one of Robert of Mowbray's rebellions. The see was moved from Somerset to Bath in 1090 and he became Bishop - nice promotion, John. With the elevation of the abbey to cathedral status, it was felt that a larger, more up-to-date building was required so he planned a new cathedral on a grand scale, dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. He died before it was completed and a fire devastated the half finished cathedral in 1137. Building resumed and was completed sometime in the middle of the 12th century but the see was moved and the Cathedral fell into disrepair. By 1499 it was little more than a shell but the Bishop of Bath and Wells decided to build a new smaller church in the footprint of the nave of the Norman cathedral. It was finish just a few years before the dissolution of the monasteries. Again, disrepair. Queen Elizabeth I promoted the restoration of the church, more work was done in the 1860s and 1890s and further work was carried out in the 20th and 21st centuries, including reconstruction of the pipe organ. Whew - that's just a summary and leaves out a lot of political intrigue, so dive deeper if you're interested.

The ceiling of the Abbey is beautiful; it's called a fan vault for obvious reasons.

There's a window in the floor through which you can see the original footing of the Norman building.

This is a memorial to St. Alphege who was an Anglo-Saxon monk and head of the Abbey in 980.

He was famous for following the strict rules of monastic life very closely. He became Bishop of Winchester and then Archbishop of Canterbury. He was kidnapped by Viking raiders in 1011 and forbade anyone from paying the ransom, which so infuriated the Danes that they clubbed him to death with stones and ox bones.

This stunning window commemorates the coronation of King Edgar in Bath in 973. He became king in 957 but decided that he wanted a big affair for his 30th birthday, so decided on this coronation. The ceremony that was devised is the same one which has been used since then for the coronation of British monarchs.

The main windows by the alter tell the story of Jesus' life from the annunciation in the lower left to his ascent to heaven in the upper right.

In the Gethsemane chapel is the window dedicated to John of Tours.

I don't know if you can see it clearly, but the alter cloth is dedicated to the victims of torture and unjust incarceration. It features a barbed wire design representing their torture and a golden sun representing the light of their redemption through Jesus.

We were at the Abbey when an organ recital was about to start. We stayed for some of it, but I am peculiarly unmoved by a lot of Bach's repertoire for organ. I did enjoy watching the organist's footwork on the pedals which was broadcast on a TV screen. Nice red socks, too.

No photos were allowed during the performance. Sorry. Here's one of the organ.

The baptismal font is from the Victorian era and features sculptures on each of its four sides. the bull represents St. Luke, the eagle represents John the Evangelist, the lion represents St. Mark and I'm sorry, but I don't remember which saint the human head represents. I couldn't even find it when I Googled it!

Because Bath is built on limestone, for years burials were in the cathedral with large stone memorials placed in the floor. Over time, that caused parts of the floor to crack and collapse as the coffins and bodies decayed. Extensive work had to be done at various times in its history to restabilize the floor. Another interesting feature of the floor is the cast iron grating. Originally this is where the heat would come up through pipes. In 2021, the heating system was modernized to take advantage of the heat generated by the thermal springs nearby, making it better for the ecosystem.

The walls of the Abbey are covered in memorials as well.

Abbey done & dusted, Bruce headed out for the pubs. I returned to the flat to retrieve my phone and decided to visit the Victoria Art Gallery which was featuring an exhibition called Toulouse-Lautrec and the Masters of Montmartre. It featured 100 original posters from 1890s Bohemian Paris. Thirty original Toulouse-Lautrec posters were accompanied by originals by Theophile Steinlen, Jules Cheret, Alphonse Mucha and others. To be honest, I wasn't prepared to be as enchanted as I was. That enchantment is, in large part, because of the wonderful guide accessible through the Bloombergconnects app. There was a wonderful history of each poster, with some offering music of the time as well. You can access all this info if you're interested, even though you're not at the gallery. Just download Bloombergconnects and search for Victoria Art Gallery, Bath. Here are some of my favorite posters from the exhibition:

Tournee du Chat Noir by Theophile Steinlen:

Aristide Bruant by Toulouse-Lautrec:

Job cigarette papers ad by Alphonse Mucha:

Grafton Gallery ad by Eugene Grasset:

The Hanged Man by Toulouse-Lautrec:

Sarah Bernhardt, La Dame aux Camelias by Alphonse Mucha:

Chocolat Carpentier by Henri Gerbault

Ou Sont-ils? by Alfred Choubrac:

On the way out, I put myself into the picture, courtesy of the lovely man in the lobby.

I wanted to go to the Holburne Museum for the Henri Miller miniatures exhibition, but I decided to go back to the flat and relax a bit before we headed off for dinner. I had found a recommendation for the Wilks restaurant on the Guide Michelin site and was lucky to get a reservation on fairly short notice. I didn't know how lucky till we got there. We found a cab at the train station, gave him the address and made our way there, except that once we were on the street, we couldn't find the restaurant. I had forgotten that British street numbers are not always sequential, and in this case we had to backtrack to find #13 Chelsea Road. We arrived early and had to kill a bit of time in the cold, but at 7:00 we got to the door and a gentleman unlocked it and let us in, then locked it behind us. He introduced himself as James, the owner and chef and told us that we were the only two dining there that night. That was pretty extraordinary, but then he told us that the restaurant only seats 6. James had had a 24-seat restaurant in Bristol, but needed a break, so leased the facility to someone else. Covid hit and he sought out former yacht clients and worked for them over the Covid lockdown. When he returned to the area he thought it would be fun to have a very small restaurant where he could cook amazing food for a limited clientele. It took a while for word to spread, but now he's booked for months in advance. How did we manage a reservation? Well, he's usually only open Wednesday to Saturday but he thought he'd try opening on a Tuesday and see what the response would be. This was his first Tuesday and we were exceedingly lucky. I guess the experiment worked because his website now lists the hours as Tuesday through Saturday. I urge you to read James' bio; you'll understand how extraordinary he is.

James asked if we wanted to start with an aperitif and, seeing the list, how could we refuse? I had the Chartreuse negroni, made with yellow Chartreuse instead of Campari. Bruce had a homemade lemongrass gin & tonic with raspberry and ginger.

To go with them, James brought out the first round of amuse bouche. (He runs both the kitchen and the front of house.) Yuzu cream-filled choux pastry topped with citrus caviar and shortbread topped with a black truffle tuille. Lovely little bites.

Another set of amuse bouche followed: sea bream tartare and veal sweetbreads with morel mushroom slices. The sea bream was melt-in-your-mouth tender and the sweetbreads had the richest, fullest flavor you can imagine.

Now it was time for the main event(s). The first dish was a lobster bisque with a lobster claw and herbs, followed by a seaweed brioche with organic bronze fennel butter.

This was paired with a wine from Crete, a 2022 Iliana Malihin, Vidiano Thrapsathiri which had a lovely crispness and a bit of stone fruit on the palate. This also went perfectly with the next course which was a native lobster tail gravadlax with organic fennel and radish, pink grapefruit, Timut pepper, lobster jus vinaigrette and honey. I asked James what Tilmut pepper was, and he brought out a dish to let us taste the pepper berries. It has a distinct grapefruit overtone which was fascinating. The dish was perfect, the grapefruit adding just the right citrus tang to cut the richness of the lobster.

After that course, James brought out a freshly baked loaf of bread with sweet butter and homemade seaweed butter. I knew I didn't need bread, but it smelled so good, I couldn't resist and the seaweed butter had me going back to it again and again. (Note the dish of Timut pepper in the background.)

Next came poached green asparagus with lightly smoked duck ham, raw Caesar mushroom and yuzu with a smoked duck ham jus. It was a lovely light dish, the smoked duck ham adding an element of richness. the Caesar mushrooms had a sort of a chestnut flavor. It was paired with a 2016 Goisot, Chablis, Faucertaine.

I should add that James' timing was perfect. The dishes were well-paced and we never felt either rushed or as though he was keeping us waiting. Our next dish was a wild John Dory fillet with black truffle crust, saute of fresh girolles, artichokes and wild asparagus with a sea truffle butter emulsion, served with a 2022 Chavey - Chouet Bourgogne Blanc, "Les Famalottes".

It was everything you could ask for: perfectly cooked fish and gorgeous veg in a rich, buttery sauce paired with the perfect wine.

Though primarily a fish restaurant, James said that his customers insisted that he have at least one meat dish on the menu, and so our next course was a dry aged beef ribeye with black garlic, Roscoff onion and organic hispi cabbage with a red wine jus and Penja white peppercorn. This is the ultimate rich, umami-filled bite. I don't usually eat meat and, to his credit, James offered to make a different course for me but as I told him, when visiting a highly rated restaurant with a set menu, I like to put myself in the chef's hands. This dish proves why. Served with a 2006 Chateau Maucamps, Haut Medoc, Bordeaux, it was a flawless match, the acid and tannin of the wine cutting through the richness of the perfectly rare beef.

I would have sworn that I couldn't have eaten another bite, but then came dessert. Or, rather, desserts. The first was a strawberry jus macerated peach with wild strawberry, elderflower ice cream and pistachio.

James served a 2022 Riesling Alfer Hole 1900, Trocken from the Mosel Valley with the desserts. It had all the richness of a fine sauterne and was a perfect last pairing with both desserts, the second of which was new season raspberries on a wholegrain shortbread tart with creme fraiche sorbet & cardamom and wild Madagascan pepper.

This ridiculously opulent tasting menu was only £125 per person. Let that sink in. An evening of perfection for so little dosh. Incredible!